To not understand why food is such a class issue in the UK????

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This is prompted by the food bank thread in Chat. If you haven't read it, it's basically various posters claiming that porridge and honey are "posh" foods that "normal" people don't eat...

Anyway, I have lived in the UK for over a decade and still don't understand this obsession with categorising food in such a way. What is the origin of it? Many of the foods considered "posh" are basic foods which normal people around the world have eaten for hundreds or thousands of years, and are still eating them.

Why are chick peas sneered at while baked beans are ok?

Why do people prefer to give their kids cornflakes and think that having porridge is something to laugh about?

Yes, food preferred by food banks is a whole diferent issue. Whats the point of giving someone a huge bag of brown rice if they don't have the gas to cook it for 20 mins every meal.

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Was it Samuel Johnson who once reportedly described oats as a grain which in England is fed to horses and in Scotland is fed to people, which is why England has such fine horses and Scotland has such fine people

I would imagine with food banks the food they would prefer will also depend on the area. There must be some regions where certain food would jump off the shelves and in others it would sit there untouched.

Probably why it's better to just look at what list of foods your specific food bank are requesting and leave your personal preferences at home.

As a foodbank employee I can see why oats may be an issue, people assume they require a lot of milk and heat to make porridge. Likewise chickpeas, you need a whole host of other ingredients and a bit of knowledge to use them. But we can find a home for anything, nothing is ever wasted!

I can tell you we are generally short of jam/spreads, sponge puddings, loo roll. Never short of beans, pasta, cereal, tea! And biscuits,tend to have lots of them.

Our standard list.

You can just soak oats in milk ( or water) overnight though And eat cold the next day as overnight oats. Or just warm through quickly in pan/ microwave if you have one but like I say you don't have to.

Because sadly OP we are obsessed with social class here in the UK.

There was a thread on MN a few months ago about what food stuffs are we "snobby" about? You see insisting on good quality food of some kind means you have some kind of exalted view of yourself

Bizarre really and I don't know any other country where they'd regard going after your preferred, decent quality food is considered elitist and narcissistic.

Why would you want to fanny around with oats when you could have a complete meal? That's the point of food banks, fast and filling. Oats are not complete. Oak cakes are no more filling than anything else. Honey is a bit of a strange thing to buy when you could buy IE 4 jars value jam instead. There is nothing wrong with them, they're just not especially desirable in food banks. They have nothing to do with class or being posh

Food is definitely a class issue in this country.

Before I had children, all my friends were very middle class. All of them could cook, throw a dinner party and had a wide knowledge of food.

Since my dc started school I have met a much wider mix of people. I had one child over for a play date and I made a roast chicken. It was the first time she told me that she had ate chicken that wasn't a nugget or breaded...I was actually really shocked.

I think it might be different depending on where you are in the uk. Porridge and oatcakes are pretty ordinary in Scotland. Most people I know here eat them irrespective of economic background. I was quite surprised on that crazy food bank thread how many folk had never eaten an oatcake.

Is it the case then that food bank shoppers should buy the cheapest possible version of everything, even when they wouldn't feed that to their own family?

I'm not entitled to much of an opinion on this as I haven't made any FB donations myself although it's on my must do list.

Lots of ppl on the other thread said that there was no point donating honey or oatcakes as kids wouldn't know what they were.

I don't use milk in my porridge, just water with a a splash of milk on top when it's the bown. Are we Scots all posh then?

I also love oatcakes, as does DS. They are the perfect pocket snack food.

Absolutely not. Most foodbanks give a whole range of food, we give enough for however many people in the family for 3 days...this covers all 3 meals per day, snacks and drinks.(tea, coffee, juice, squash, milk, sugar etc.)

Then on top of that we give extras, fun bits that aren't on the meal type list...so we would put ready meals, pot noodles etc in there.

Most people who access banks are just like you and me. They want to take care of their families and do their best with what they have. They don't just want pot noodles.

Porridge isn't posh unless it is doused with Demerara, with cream from a silver jug and served on crested china.
Otherwise it is just oats and milk/water.
Dr Johnson described Oats as 'food that in England is fed to horses but commonly eaten in Scotland' (or something like that - my internet is playing up...).
Oatcakes are flat porridge with water and salt.
They are yummy.
We live in Scotland and eat LOTS of porridge, oatcakes and flapjack.

You can eat oats raw with milk like cereal, DH does.

I get it. I grew up in an area where we were ridiculed for eating porridge or granola because it wasn't cartoon character jellies stuff with plastic figures.
I got laughed at at school for having brown bread with "bits" in for lunch.
Reverse snobbery is a thing and when you're a kid it's wearing.

Witsender thanks loo roll is one of those things that wouldn't have immediately jumped to my mind.

I tend to think that class in general is a much more English preoccupation. I'm not sure it bothers folk in the rest of the UK nearly as much.

But former babe have you decided that your children's friend hasn't had roast chicken because she's poor?

because there are plenty of people with good jobs and income, educated homeowners etc who don't cook either.

But former babe have you decided that your children's friend hasn't had roast chicken because she's poor?

Nope they are not poor as far as I can tell....I would say it has more to do with poor cooking skills and knowledge rather than actual money. Cooking is a class issue in itself. Actually cooking and reading seem to be the preserve of the middle classes.

I get it too. I have silenced rooms before simply by telling middle-class people that I used to be given fizzy drinks with every meal and a 10p mix of sweets on the way home from school every day, and that nearly everything we ate at home came from the freezer or tin section in the supermarket and/or was breaded or battered.

Not to mention that we used to have dinner and tea, whereas they all grew up having lunch and dinner.

Round here oatcakes aren't crackers, they are a type of pancake you eat for breakfast or at tea time with bacon, eggs and beans. Not posh

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Museumum, I totally feel your pain. Granola childhood here too. Even my teachers at primary school were incredulous at my wholemeal bread and jar of apple juice. They thought it was a urine sample :)

It's a weird truth that basic, unfiddled with food is seen as fancy, whilst souped up processed and packaged food with free toys and all sorts is seen as down to earth, unpretentious.

It's so odd to me to see so many of the embarrassments of my childhood become the preserve of hipsters. Oh to have a time machine. In your face, white bread wankers :)